Confounding and confounders

• confounding
• confounders

Confounding should always be addressed in studies concerned with causality. When present, it results in a biased estimate of the effect of exposure on disease. The bias can be negative—resulting in underestimation of the exposure effect—or positive, and can even reverse the apparent direction of effect. It is a concern no matter what the design of the study or what statistic is used to measure the effect of exposure.

The potential for confounding can be reduced by good study design, but in non-randomised studies this is unlikely to resolve the problem fully. Hence statistical adjustment methods, to reduce the bias caused by measured confounders, are also frequently considered. Such adjustment presupposes that one knows which factors are confounders. However, recent literature on methods for identifying confounders suggest that these are not always obvious. Indeed, in pursuit of guidelines, authors have had to reexamine the meanings of confounding and confounders with some ambiguity and conflict emerging. This literature is reviewed and a recent modification to the traditional definition of a confounder, which emphasises causal rather than statistical relationships, is described and illustrated. Some well known problems in occupational epidemiology, arising from health related selection, are considered in the light of recent ideas.

Control of confounding through study design is not addressed, nor is the article concerned with details of statistical methods for adjustment. An overview of design and analysis in relation to confounding by age may be useful additional reading.¹ It is assumed that the reader has at least a basic knowledge of epidemiological methods. Unless otherwise stated, definitions and comments apply to all causal study designs including case–control studies.